I'm Not There

3.5 Stars

When you take 6 different strong lives and stories, and then smash it all together in a world of Pie, you get a interesting story of characters playing different roles of Dylan in a wonderful visionary journey through each one follows the journey of one Bob Dylan.

Here is the cast and what they play:

1) Christian Bale – Jack of Dylan
2) Cate Blanchett- Jude of Dylan
3) Heath Ledger- Robbie the actor
4) Marcus Carl Franklin – Woody the fake
5) Richard Gere – Billy the Kid
6) Ben Whishaw – Arthur of Dylan

Written and directed by Todd Haynes, he takes you on a visionary story of many different aspects following along with the life of Bob Dylan. It was one of those movies you were interested in from beginning to end, even if you get lost in what the movie is trying to say.

Some key notes in watching this movie:

My favorite part of the story was from Marcus Franklin who played Woody. A fugitive on the run, and living as if he was back in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s and not living his time of 1959. To see the story line of this portion was brilliant acting of this young star, I am excited to see what he will become.

Cate Blanchett plays a male role, and I really thought that she was outstanding. This was one of her crowning achievements playing Jude, when “he” changes his way of playing folk music by adding electric, the louder voice hated it, and wanted the traditional way claiming that he “sold out.” When all reality you see that Jude was unique more then with less popularity then he was when he was doing the original. I know I am referring Cate as a male role, but she did a convincing job of it, I was surprised on how she pulls it off. Too often you see men play woman roles, (more gross that one wants to imagine, and please Travolta, don’t ever to that again…off tangent) but to see Blanchett play an extraordinary role.

Heath Ledger played an actor who played the role in a movie of Christain Bale’s character of Jack. You see his love life change, and how he got caught up in the glamour. Beautifully acted period.

The major best part of this film was that each actor had its small role, and ran with it, put all of there creative juices into it. Christian Bale continues to impress me with his acting, and has really proven himself as one of the greats of all time.

My main negative part of this film was that it was to confusing at times. I felt that the editing to make this film more time sequential would’ve put this film into the next level of greatness like Babel or Pulp Fiction. Instead it was so random; I felt that it was pieced together by picking straws of what scene goes next. There were moments of the film when you said “yes that works” and the majority was, “were the hell is this going?”

Overall this film does deserve a lot of credit for its creativity and imagery. I wish it flowed better, however I am just one opinion. Overall I would love to see this film again, because it is one of those movies you just can’t see once.


If you like this movie I recommend:

Babel
Pulp Fiction
Spinal Tap
The Wall